 The Journey Camp for Girls, or “Journey” is a week-long camp for rising 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls in Howard County, MD that is run by Maryland Leadership Workshops (MLW) and conceived of and funded by the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County (WGC).
The idea behind Journey is to bring girls together in their formative years to learn about leadership, empowerment, and community. At Journey each student identifies her own leadership skills, strengths, and challenges in a supportive and fun environment that fosters self-esteem and confidence. The WGC is honored to have begun a program this year to provide scholarships in memory of former WGC Advisory Board Member Cindy Hankin. This year, the WGC has provided $5,005 in scholarships. Funded by Cindy’s family, friends, and WGC donors, these scholarships are provided in her memory in perpetuity to qualifying Journey Camp participants. Cindy was a staunch supporter of the Journey Camp for Girls. A former teacher, and school principal, Cindy was beloved by her family, friends, students, and community and served as mentor, and long-time advocate for women and girls. Cindy brought a bright and wonderful spirit to the world, enriching it for all who knew her. “I am thrilled that we were able to increase our scholarships this year, which means we are achieving our goal of reaching girls from different demographic and socioeconomic groups across the county” says Alison Canning, WGC Chair. “We are honored to be able to give so much in the first year that we began offering scholarships in memory of our friend Cindy Hankin.” Journey 2018 will be held July 15-21 at UMBC and is completely full with 25 participants – we can’t wait for a great week! On Thursday, July 17th (time TBD) Journey campers and MLW will host a dinner and presentation at UMBC for WGC Advisory Board members, and any WGC donors who would like to attend and get first-hand experience with the program. If you would like to attend please send an email to incoming WGC Chair Barb Van Winkle at: WGCChair@womensgivingcircle.org.
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The WGC’s Emergency Response Network was created 15 years ago in response to the desire of many women to provide direct help to other women in need, in our community. WGC donors have addressed the specific needs of women clients identified by our nonprofit partner agencies serving women and girls in Howard County. These agencies include Hope Works, Grassroots, Healthy Families, Elder Services of Family and Children’s Services and FIRN. Since its inception, and under the visionary leadership of former WGC Advisory Board members Arlene Sheff and Kim Flyr, the ERN has assisted over 70 women and their children who benefited from nearly $50,000 from donors who responded to a call to action through WGC’s ERN.
We have recently enhanced the WGC’s ERN to make it easier for our donors to respond, and easier for our nonprofit partners to receive funds by updating our processes and broadening our network. It’s easy, here’s how it is going to work for our donors:
We will soon be sending our first enhanced Emergency Response Network Request – stay tuned! In the meantime, learn more here. And, we will be speaking at length about the ERN at our upcoming Happy Hour on July 17 – join us!  Dear WGC Donor and Friends, Wow, this is my last message to you as the Chair of the WGC. It has been my honor to serve as Chair the last two years, and to work closely with our wonderful Advisory Board, Community Foundation of Howard County leadership and staff, and WGC donors, partners, and grantees to improve the lives of women in girls in our community. I am proud to have helped bring people with common interests together to learn about issues impacting our community and to have lead our organization in engaging donors so we could pool our funds and collectively make larger grants together. READ THE FULL JUNE 2018 ENEWSLETTER HERE It has been an incredible experience to lead our Giving Circle that has been part of the Howard County community for over 15 years, has raised over $1 million to support our efforts from over 1,000 donors, and has given grants to over 100 nonprofits that support women and girls in our community. I truly appreciate all current, past and future WGC leaders, donors and partners who will carry this effort forward, including our incoming Chair, and my partner the last two years, Barb Van Winkle. I know the WGC will continue to thrive under her leadership! If I can pass along one thing, it would be to continue to talk to our donors and others in the community about the WGC and who we are, what we do, and ways to get involved – it is truly the best way to grow the Circle and engage others in our important and meaningful work:
And we do all this together – as a Giving Circle. It takes all of us investing our time, talent, and financial resources in various ways to ensure our Giving Circle is having an impact, and I personally want to thank each of you from the bottom of my heart for joining me in this wonderful effort to improve the lives of women and girls in our community! I’ll still be a part of the WGC Advisory Board so please don’t hesitate to contact me or anyone on the Advisory Board with any questions. Thank you for your partnership and support, and please welcome Barb Van Winkle as our new Chair beginning July 1st! Warmly, Alison Canning, WGC Chair aecanning@gmail.com  3 Questions With … Incoming WGC Chair, Barb Van Winkle!
Each month we are speaking to our donors to learn more about how they are participating in WGC efforts, and why it’s meaningful to them. This month, please meet incoming WGC Chair, Barb Van Winkle: 1. How long have you been involved with the WGC, and what is your role now? I attended the very first Women’s Giving Circle meeting in 2002, and what I always remember is the incredible experience it was when I parked my car at Kahler Hall and went in with hundreds of other Howard County women all coming to the beginning of the Women’s Giving Circle of Howard County!!! It was a powerful and beautiful experience to be surrounded by so many women who had the same desire to be part of a group that was going to support women and girls directly in Howard County! I have been a long time supporter of WGC, and while I was serving on the board of the Community Foundation of Howard County, I asked to be the liaison to WGC, which is a fund of the foundation. I continued on the WGC Advisory Board as Chair of the Donor Development committee and Vice Chair, and I am incoming Chair beginning July 1. I have been honored to support Alison Canning, current WGC Chair, and I am thrilled to lead WGC as a premier funder in Howard County! 2. What is your favorite WGC grant or effort, and why? This is a very difficult question for me to answer because I truly love all the grants, programs and efforts we support through our donations and collaboration with our nonprofit partners! From the WGC-funded Journey Camp for Girls, which is a week-long summer leadership program for middle and high-school aged girls held in collaboration with Maryland Leadership Workshops, to our partnership with Howard Community College, where we provide scholarships to help women returning to the workforce, to our long-standing Emergency Response Network, which is returning as an enhanced program that provides opportunities for our donors to immediately give to help to women and children in dire situations. But I guess that as a long-time business owner, I have to say that I deeply love the JA Rising Women entrepreneurship program that has provided an opportunity for almost 300 high school women learn how to run a business, create a product, sell that product, and then donate their profits to a philanthropy of their choice. Four years ago, the WGC made it’s largest grant in our history – $80,000 to JA of Central Maryland to run this incredible program. These young women truly learn the successes and failures of owning your own business and in the end, they have all proved successful so far! 3. Why should women in Howard County give to the WGC and get involved in WGC efforts? Your donation to the WGC supports women and girls locally in the community that you live in! The power of a Giving Circle is that any donation, small or large, gets pooled with all other donations so we can collectively make a larger impact to help those in our community that need it most, for either life circumstances or to help empower women and girls in the journey of life! To become a member of the Women’s Giving Circle, all you need to do is make an online donation (www.womensgivingcircle.org) and sign up for our eNewsletter! You can also be a part of the WGC by attending our events. In fact, we have a WGC Happy Hour on July 17th at Sub-Zero and Wolf by Fretz from 5 to 7 pm and then our Annual Celebration is October 15th also from 5 to 7 pm. Our keynote speaker this year is a local Howard County woman, Rayna DuBose, whose story is absolutely incredible about the strength and ability to overcome a tragedy and become a huge success in her life! Also, let your friends know about the WGC and like us on social media, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and share our events with your friends! Finally, we are always looking to expand our committees and if you are interested in joining a committee, please contact us at: WGCChair@womensgivingcircle.org Barb welcomes the opportunity to answer any questions about the WGC – feel free to contact her after July 1 at WGCChair@womensgivingcircle.org Barb Van Winkle, Incoming WGC Chair, is President of Nancy Adams Personnel in Columbia, where her company has been for over 40 years. Her business specializes in providing top-notch candidates to all size companies for Administrative, Customer Service, Accounting and Office Support positions, both permanent and temporary. She has a BA degree in Sociology from Goucher College, is a triathlete and golfer, and has served on many nonprofit boards including HCCEF and Community Foundation of Howard County. She loves the Women’s Giving Circle and has been a strong supporter since its inception in 2002! We had a wonderful night on June 8 celebrating our partnership with Howard Community College and our newly named room in the Science, Engineering and Technology building. WGC hosted a Pre-Event Reception for donors and friends before the Community Foundation of Howard County’s Spring Party at Howard Community College. We are proud to have partnered with HCC for over a decade to provide scholarships to women. As part of this important relationship, we held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for our newly named Women’s Giving Circle classroom at HCC during the reception! We had a lovely night celebrating our funding partnership! Stay tuned for official photos of the evening – great to see so many donors and supporters as well as some of our current, future, and past WGC chairs!  |
"Women’s philanthropy shapes the future for women and girls through the power of collective giving." - Barb Van Winkle, Immediate Past Chair
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